The Shoals of Herring

By Ewan MacColl

6/4 time
C
1. O, it was a fine and a plea - sant day
G
out of yar - mouth har-bour I was far - ing
C G (F) (G) C
as a cab - in boy on a sail - ing lug - ger
F G7
for to go and hunt the shoals of her - ring
2. O, the work was hard and the hours were long
and the treatment, sure, it took some bearing,
there was little kindness and the kicks were many
as we hunted for the shoals of herring
3. O, we finished the swarth and the broken bank
I was cook and I'd a quarter-sharing
and I used to sleep, standing on my feet
and I'd dream about the shaols of herring
4. O, we left the home grounds in the month of June
and to canny shiels we soon were bearing
with a hundred cran of the silver darlings
that we'd taken from the shoals of herring
5. Now your up on deck, you're a fisherman
you can swear and show a manly bearing
take your turn on watch with the other fellows
while you're searching for the shoals of herring
6. In the stormy seas and the living gales
just to earn your daily bread your daring
from the dover straits to the faroe islands,
as your following the shoals of herring
7. O, I earned me keep and I paid me way
and I eaned the gear I was wearing
sailed a million miles, caught ten million fishes
we were sailing after shoals of herring
(The original radio version had a different first verse which has a
slightly different melody it goes as follows)
4/4 time
C
With our nets and gear we're far - ing
G
on the wild and waste - ful o - cean
F
It's there on the deep that we (6/4 time) har - vest
G C F G
and reap our bread as hunt the bon - ny shoals of her -
C
ring

(all above info from the Pete Seeger book "The Incompleat Folksinger)

Notes:

The following is the text of a message that someone sent to Sonny
Ochs. So, I don't know who wrote it...

MacColl wrote "Shoals of Herring" for the BBC radio documentary "Singing
The Fishing" in the Radio Ballad series of the late 1950s. It's about
the herring fisheries off the east coast of England and Scotland. It was
quickly adopted into the oral tradition in Britain and Ireland. At some
point, the English habit of dropping aitches met with Irish national
pride, and someone must have recorded it under the title "Shoals of Erin".
I don't know who it was, but it must have been someone whose recordings
have had some lasting impact, as this controversy surfaces from time to
time.